The Power (63 page)

'Why should I? Because of the ice and snow the roads are very dangerous, I gather. And very low temperatures during the night won't help. But you must make up your own mind.'

'Then I shall be going, so I suppose I'd better get up to
bed.'

Tweed noted she moved very steadily as she came
round the end of the table, bent down, kissed him on the
cheek. Her hair brushed the side of his face, giving him a tingling sensation.

Thank you, Tweed. For your moral support.' She
turned her gaze on Newman. 'As for you, Mr Pessimist,
have a nice day - as the pathetic Americans are always
saying.' She gave him a little wave, a wry smile and
disappeared into the hotel.

'What the devil are you up to?' Newman burst out
when they were alone. 'All hell is liable to break loose on
those mountain slopes tomorrow .. .'

'I agree,' Tweed interjected amiably, then finished off
his wine.

'Every conceivable weapon could be used against us,'
Newman raved on, keeping his voice down. 'So why send
Eve into a battlefield?'

'You'd managed to persuade her not to go then?'

'Well, not exactly . . .'

'Be frank. Didn't she refuse point blank to take any
notice of your attempt to get her to change her mind?'

'Yes, she did,'Newman admitted.

'I sensed this as soon as I arrived. Eve is a woman of
great character, of exceptional willpower. By agreeing
with her, I made her sympathetic to me. There is a faint
chance - no more - that when she recalls what I said
about the dangerous roads she'll change her mind,'

'So why do I get the feeling you're conducting some
very devious manoeuvre?' Newman demanded. 'And
what time do you plan we reach the Château Noir?'

'Not long after eleven in the morning - when Eve
Amberg has arrived there, if she makes the trip.'

38

Paula tapped on Tweed's door at seven the following
morning. He called out for her to come in and she found him in the bathroom, shirt collar open as he stood before
a mirror shaving.

'Should I come back later?' she suggested. 'You ought to be able to get ready in peace.'

'You've seen a man shaving before today. Sit down
while I talk. I need a sounding-board about this whole business - going right back to the massacre at Tresillian
Manor.'

'Fire away.' She perched on the edge of the unused
bed. 'I'm listening with all my ears, as the French say, and
we are in France.'

'So far I have assumed that the same people who blew
up our Park Crescent HQ also perpetrated the hideous
massacre at Gaunt's manor. You were always sceptical.'

'Yes, I know. Maybe I underestimated the enormous
power of the apparatus we're up against.'

'I'm wondering now if / gave them a little too much credit for almost superhuman organization - synchron
izing the two events.' He wiped soap off his face, cleaned
his brush and razor. 'It
would
require truly superhuman planning - to blow up our HQ in London and then commit the massacre all within a few hours.' Tweed's tone
sharpened as he put on his tie. 'I honestly don't now
believe such timing was possible, that it happened that
way. They wouldn't have the information in time - that
Amberg was at the manor and that Joel Dyson had
deposited copies of the film and the tape with us. Not enough time to organize both the massive car bomb and
the massacre way down in Cornwall.'

Paula frowned as she snapped her compact shut after
checking her appearance behind Tweed's back. She
stared at him as he put on his jacket.

'What you are suggesting contradicts all our theories.'

'My
wrong theories.' Tweed folded his arms on the
back of an upholstered chair and stared down at her. 'It
came to me in the middle of the night when I couldn't
sleep. I've assumed I was trying to assemble the pieces of a single complex jigsaw. Now I'm sure that there are
two
jigsaws.'

'Help!' said Paula in mock confusion. 'I don't think I
could cope with that. Two
separate
jigsaws?'

'No, it's far more diabolical than that. These two jig
saws interlock. To put it simply, one couldn't exist with
out the other.'

'Simply? If you say so.'

'Paula, it all started with Joel Dyson flying in from the
States with a film and a tape. Whatever is recorded on
those two items is so earth-shattering that an army of top
professionals flies in after Dyson. Those pieces of the
jigsaw fit. One jigsaw so far.'

'And these cold-blooded professionals - killers - are all
American,'she pointed out.

'True. Ponder that and you might get a glimmer as to
who is behind the apparatus controlled by Norton. I
admit the idea is world-shaking. Want to guess who?'

'No idea. Go on.'

'Maybe we should have breakfast...' Tweed began.

'Let it wait a bit. I want to hear more,' Paula urged him
on. 'I sense you've had a mental
breakthrough.'

'Let's call the American apparatus Goliath. They track
Dyson to Park Crescent, assume - correctly - that he's
left the film and tape with us, although they don't know
they're copies. Goliath organizes the massive car bomb to
destroy the film and tape. Still with Jigsaw One.'

'What about Jigsaw Two?'

'I'm now convinced the massacre at Tresillian Manor
was carried out by someone else. Let's borrow Jennie
Blade's Shadow Man. He knows Dyson flew on to Zurich with the copies of the film and the tape—'

'Assumption,' Paula objected. 'How do you know that?'

'It's the only sequence of events which explains the new
theory I've developed, which I'm sure is the right one. Do
let me finish. Shadow Man has to be someone who knows
the Ambergs - and therefore knew what Dyson had left
with them. He has to be someone who knows the
Ambergs,' he repeated, 'because he knew Amberg would be at Tresillian Manor on the day of the massacre. Those
two items are worth a fortune - proved by the tremendous
efforts the Americans are making to get them back, to
eliminate anyone who might know about their existence. Am I going too fast?'

'No. I'm beginning to get ahead of you. Shadow Man wants to lay his hands on film and tape, wants the fortune they could bring him.'

'So, logically, he plans and carries out the massacre at
Tresillian Manor. His real target was, of course,
Amberg.'

'Why?'Paula enquired.

'Because he knows he can handle the more passive twin
- Walter. He also knows he'd never get Julius to release
them to him. Solution? Murder Julius. Which leaves the
weak Walter to obtain the film and tape from. Hence the
two interlocking jigsaws - and the fact that one couldn't exist without the other.'

'I do see what you mean now. Whatever happened in America created a chain reaction among a lot of people.'

'Which is why I insist the two jigsaws are linked like
identical twins.' Tweed gazed into the distance out of the
window. The sun shone on steeply slanting rooftops.
'What we need to do is to get hold of that film, see what is
on it, and listen to the tape. Which is what I'm going to demand from Amberg when we reach the Château Noir
today. He must have hidden them somewhere, may even be carrying them around with him. Now, breakfast.'

'Just before we go down, we have a problem,' Paula
warned. 'It's called Jennie Blade. Somehow she's found
out we're going up into the Vosges this morning. She
insists on coming with us. I argued but got nowhere. She's scared stiff of the Shadow Man.'

'Let Gaunt take care of her,' Tweed said, grasping the door handle. 'She's his girl friend.'

'Gaunt has driven off early this morning in his BMW.
He had Eve with him. She didn't look too happy with
him. I saw Gaunt heading off towards the Vosges and Eve
had her chin up, staring fixedly away from him.'

'I can guess what that was about,' Tweed remarked and
smiled wrily. 'Eve wanted to go up to see Amberg at the Château
Noir on her own and Gaunt - dominating as ever
- bullied her into going with him. He may have made a
mistake. Eve can handle even Gaunt if push comes to
shove. And we can't be lumbered on this trip with
Jennie.'

'Better tell Jennie yourself. Oh, I waved off Marler when he drove away at dawn on his way to the Ballon d'Alsace.'

'Why were you up at that hour?'

Tweed had paused, still holding the door handle. He
had not yet unlocked the door while he waited for her
reply.

'Couldn't sleep,' Paula told him. 'Something someone
said was important and I can't recall it. Got up in the
middle of the night, had a shower, got dressed, went
downstairs. Which is how I saw Marler
before he left for
that gliding school. I had an early breakfast, then saw Eve leaving with Gaunt. But I'll join you for more coffee. This
is going to be a rough ride up into the Vosges, isn't it? I
found all the Americans had checked out early.'

'Yes, it will be a very rough ride up to the heights of the Château
Noir,' Tweed warned her.

Tweed and Paula did not breakfast alone in the Brasserie.
They had hardly sat down and ordered continental break
fast when Jennie Blade appeared. Clad in ski pants
tucked into ankle boots, a white woollen polo-necked sweater which emphasized her figure, and carrying a sheepskin, she sat down at their table, facing Tweed.

'May I join you?'

She gave him a ravishing smile and nodded to Paula
who stared back at her without comment.

'You just did,' Tweed pointed out.

'I hope I'm not interrupting an intimate tete-a-tete,' she
went on, glancing again at Paula.

'Hardly, at breakfast time,' Tweed replied drily.

'I hear you're driving up into the mountains today. You
know' - she gave him her most beguiling smile - 'I
couldn't sleep a wink last night -I couldn't get out of my
mind my experience with that Shadow Man in the fog. So,
please, please, take me with you. You could come back and find me dead.'

'Anything is possible,' Tweed agreed neutrally.

'Then that's settled, you'll take me up there with you -
and with you by my side I'll feel perfectly safe, Tweed.'

'Paula is likely to be by my side.' He drank the coffee a
waiter had appeared with as though by magic, which
Paula had then poured. 'Space will be at a premium,' he
said.